Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney drew considerable
criticism during his 2012 campaign when he made disparaging remarks about what
he described as the 47 percent of Americans who didn't pay income taxes.
Romney later backtracked on the comments but that figure has
remained in the public consciousness for years. It turns out the numbers are more complicated
than that, as seen in recent figures compiled by FedSmith. The numbers come from the Internal Revenue Service.

Here's what they found:

Top 1 percent have adjusted gross income of $388,905 or more

Top 1 percent paid 35 percent of all income taxes paid

Top 1 percent of income earners have an average tax rate of
23.5 percent

Top 5 percent have AGI of at least $167,728

Top 5 percent of paid 57 percent of all income taxes paid

Top 5 percent have an average tax rate of 20.9 percent

Top 50 percent have AGI of at least $34,823

Top 50 percent of all taxpayers pay 97 of all income taxes

Top 50 percent have an average tax rate of 13.8 percent.

Bottom 50 percent have an AGI of less than $34,823 a year

Bottom 50 percent pays 2.3 percent of all taxes

Bottom 50 percent pays an average tax rate of 3.13 percent

The FedSmith data shows that in the fourth quarter of 2011, there
were 109 million people living in a U.S. household that received government
welfare programs. At the same time, there were 86 million full-time, private
sector workers. That translates to a ratio of people on welfare program
exceeding private sector workers 1.3 to 1.